


Firstly, You Will Not Question Me

by goingbadly



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Anal Sex, Coffee Shops, M/M, Restraints, Sugar Daddy, Sugar Daddy Jim, Teen Sebastian, Teenagers, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 16:23:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5134511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingbadly/pseuds/goingbadly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian Moran, disowned by his family and starving his way through college, works nights at a coffee shop. He's approached indirectly by a mysterious stranger, who goes only by the letter M - and promises to turn Sebastian's life around. Sebastian, wary and cynical, tries his best not to be enthralled... but he can't help himself. A little bit darker than the fluffy tags imply.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Firstly, You Will Not Question Me

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for past abuse, and past mutilation. As it says on the label, this is a little bit darker than the tags imply. 100% unbetaed. Comments give me a reason to keep posting<3

“Firstly,” the voice says over the phone, “You will not question me.”

Sebastian can deal with that. He looks both ways before he steps off the curb into the street, kicking damp leaves out of the way. The holes in his trainers suck up water greedily. There’s a light cloudy mist, not quite rain, and Sebastian can feel it all the way down to his bones. It’s like walking through the center of a cloud. His breath is visible on the air in front of him, streamers of white hanging around the dingy red of his scarf.

“Secondly, you will be available to me. Any time I call, you will answer. If you are in class, you leave class. If you are in a test, you call the _second_ a phone is available. Sleep is not an excuse to ignore your phone. Neither is anything else.”

 _If you pay me well enough, you can wire the phone right into my skull,_ Sebastian agrees silently. He hops back up on the other side of the sidewalk and keeps going, moving fast to keep his body warm. People get out of his way, but then again, people tend to do that. That and stare.

“And thirdly, you will not tell anyone about me. Ever.”

A woman in an ugly coat clutching a briefcase skitters out of his way and Sebastian sneers inwardly, at her and at the voice on the phone. _I’m not exactly going to be bragging._ He mugs at the woman, curling up his lip, just to watch her flinch back. Just to feel powerful again.

She obliges. Sebastian smiles. The expression feels foul on his face.

Sebastian is six-five, wide shouldered, with broad capable hands. He can’t afford new clothes so he wears his old ones until they’re a grubby shade of off-grey, tattered and torn. He knows what he looks like. When he sits in the front row of the lecture hall, he can feel the whispers brush on the back of his neck. They all think he’s a criminal. They think they’re better than him.

Maybe they are. Here he is, after all, whoring himself out for scraps like Augustus always said he would.

Sebastian stalks past the campus bakery, and the smell of the cinnamon rolls make his stomach roil. He stamps his feet down harder, squelching water up between his toes. His breath smells rank when he exhales, so he does it again to keep the sweet enticing smell of hunger out of his thoughts.

“Do you understand?” asks the voice on the line.

“Yeah.” Sebastian sounds rough, half from smoking and half from the fact that he hasn’t talked all day.

“Then your tuition is settled.” Sebastian’s mysterious benefactor pauses for a minute, and there’s the tell-tale rattle of fingers on keys. “Shoe size and measurements.”

Sebastian blinks. “Excuse me?”

“ _Shoe size and measurements,_ ” the voice repeats, impatiently. “And, while you’re at it, recite the first rule for me.”

“Firstly,” Sebastian repeats, “You will not question me.” He grits his teeth. The building he’s heading for looms out of the mist. He doesn’t have time to dwaddle around out here, arguing with his – with this person. “I’m 6-5, size 14, 48-33-41.”

There’s a brief pause. “Say again.”

“Size 14, 48-33-41.”

“…If you’re lying to impress me, pet, all you get is an ill-fitting suit.”

As if Sebastian cares what a pervert criminal thinks of his waistline. “I have to go to class,” he snaps. “Is that all?”

There’s a crackle of sound over the phone-line that might be laughter or interference. “I’ll send the car around tonight at six.” Then a click, and he’s gone.

Sebastian stabs the off button on his phone, and drops it into his bag. _Could be worse,_ he thinks. And maybe it could be.

***

Sebastian pulls his hood up over his face before he heads into the lecture hall. It doesn’t help – it never helps – the rumours have spread already. They’ve known since the first day of semester. Everyone has a guess or an explanation. None of them are right, of course. No one’s bothered to ask Sebastian, and he wouldn’t tell them if they did. He can hear groups of students turning to each other, little knots of conversation that worry around his wrists like handcuffs.

He sits in the front row so he doesn’t have to face any of them. He keeps his head down so he doesn’t have to watch the teacher blanch as she sees, as she tries so hard and so deliberately not to look.

 _I don’t know why you thought you could escape this,_ Augustus says. He upends the cup slowly. Sebastian screams.

This is Sebastian’s throw-away, an English class he could pass with his eyes closed, and they’re reading Hemingway. _The Sun Also Rises._ Hemingway’s a cynical prick but when Jack looks in the mirror and thinks, “ _Of all the ways to be wounded,_ _I suppose it was funny,”_ Sebastian smiles to himself – a small and slight thing – letting his ruined skin pucker and pull with the movement. He never smiles too wide, because he knows it makes his face worse.

***

The buzzer’s awful. Sebastian scrambles for the phone when the sound rips through his bachelor flat, kicking over a stack of textbooks. They go scattering over the off-grey carpet, spraying pages of scribbled-over paper in every direction. Sebastian’s English notes slide under the fridge. _The others twisted themselves like corkscrews, their elbows raised, and leaned against the flanks of the bull after his horns had passed, to give a faked look of danger, and if Hemingway means the bullfight as masculinity, are we faking it now? And all that is faked turned bad and gave an unpleasant feeling, and if the unpleasantness of feeling is the true measure of worth?_

The buzzer is rigged to the fire-alarm, using the same speaker, and it’s just about as loud. When Sebastian snatches up the intercom and presses the button, the silence that follows is abrupt and deafening. He winces.

“Hello?” The clock on the fridge says it’s just after five pm, and Sebastian isn’t expecting Moriarty to send him the car before six.

“Sebastian?” Posh accent. Clipped tones. Quiet underlying disdain. Sebastian knows a manservant when he hears one, and sighs.

“I thought you were coming at six.”

“Respectfully, sir, it is six.”

“Shit,” Sebastian comments, looking at the clock again. _5:08,_ it lies to him cheerfully. “Alright. I’ll be down in thirty seconds.” He glances around, but there’s not much to see. Nothing for him to take with him, at least. Seb can just kick the worst of the flammables away from the dodgy radiator, and –

“You’ll need to change into your suit, sir. I can bring it up?”

 _Shit,_ Sebastian thinks, with a little more emphasis than the first time. “Uh, I’d rather you didn’t.” The walls of the flat match the carpet; a depressing, uninterrupted grey. There’s a stain of something Sebastian doesn’t recognize over the top of the empty cupboards, and the whole place reeks stalely of cigarette smoke. In the October dark it looks like it’s too dirt-poor for vibrant things, like even if Sebastian ordered a print of a Van Gogh the colour would be leached from it in seconds.

In the summer, it boils. And smells.

“I can call ahead and see if changing facilities will be made available to you – “

Sebastian bites his lip. “No,” he tells the manservant, “Come up, it’s fine. I’m 302.” He hangs up the buzzer, and turns back to his apartment. It looks worse, with the prospect of someone else seeing it. There’s bags of fast-food trash over the floor, packaged noodle remains strewn over the counter. The couch lists brokenly to one side and his bed is a mattress on the floor in the back of the room. Through the bathroom door – leaning drunkenly on its hitches – it’s possible to see the rusted shower-head, a single drop of water falling over and over again into the drain. It looks like a shithole. It _is_ a shithole.

 _It’s mine,_ Sebastian thinks fiercely, trying to beat back his shame. And, almost immediately after: _no wonder I spend all my time at the gym._ He can feel the heat in his face as his cheeks start to flush, and hates himself for it. There’s an abandoned wrapper from some greasy burger at his feet, and Sebastian kicks it petulantly over towards the kitchen garbage. _I’m never living like this again,_ he swears to himself, _I’m never going to be poor again, not ever, not like this._

There’s a triple knock at the door, and Sebastian trudges reluctantly over to open it. He can already feel the hot twisting of shame gnawing at his stomach, and it’s almost indistinguishable from hatred. Or hunger. He wishes he was dead. He wishes they were all dead. He wishes he could take a burning torch to the whole world, the university, the apartment buildings, the stately Moran mansion with its locked doors and secret guilts –

“Sir,” the manservant says, when Sebastian opens the door, faintly taken aback. He has to crane his neck way back to meet Sebastian’s eyes. When he sees Sebastian’s face, he goes white.

Sebastian glowers down at him, glad that the doorways are narrow. It’s impossible to see past Sebastian into the flat. He holds out a hand. “The suit?”

The manservant hands over a neatly-pressed bag from Jasper Littman. He doesn’t try to see past Sebastian into the flat. It’d be beneath him. He’s a big man, although not quite as big as Sebastian, clean-shaven with his hair slicked back into the ubiquitous dark coif of London’s upper class. Sebastian has seen a hundred men exactly like him before, all precisely the same – as if they were made, somewhere, a deep laboratory underneath the houses of the rich.

“I’ll be back,” Sebastian grumbles.

He shuts the door in the man’s face. The manservant won’t complain. Sebastian knows their breed; they’re tools, nothing more, handy things to be used until no longer efficient.

 _And what does that make you?_ Something whispers, as Sebastian unzips the whisper-quiet Jasper Littman bag. Seb lifts his chin. He doesn’t think of a response.

***

The suit is beautiful, of course. It’s Jasper Littman; it was always going to be. Savile Row has been dressing the asses of the pampered and rich for too long to start fucking up now.

Sebastian looks at himself in his narrow, cracked mirror, and runs a hand down the suit. He tugs it into place at the bottom, fixes the hang of the sleeves so the button sits over his bone. It’s a light blue-grey, the kind of suit that might look vulgar on an older man, and Sebastian knows it suits him. The stark white shirt makes his skin look a shade darker, picking out the stubble on his cheeks, and as much as Sebastian avoids looking at his own face he knows he could pass for older than he is. Twenty-five, maybe.

Sebastian runs his fingers over the cufflinks. There’s something familiar about the suit, the way it sits on his shoulders; the scratchy smell of the wool, even in the stale air of the flat. Augustus used to love Savile Row. It suited him. Hundred year old shops with creaking old men and yellowed measuring tapes like clockwork figures. Going in dusty circles, repeating the same motions, over and over again.

Sebastian allows his eyes to flick up to his face. _Of all the ways to be wounded,_ _I suppose it was funny,_ Hemingway says _._ Augustus upends the cup. Sebastian screams.

Sebastian can’t meet his own eyes for long. He looks away.

***

Sebastian lets the manservant get the door of the car for him, and thinks – _I should have known._ The car is an Aston Martin, and it suits; from the moment Sebastian first heard about M, it’s been a Bond movie. Fine suits, gleaming black cars, stoic manservants with shining black shoes. And, like all good spy movies, it started with a terrified woman.

_A girl walks in, looking over her shoulder, and I knew she was looking for me…_

Only it’s a coffee shop, not a bar. And Sebastian’s working, not sipping a martini. Hauling boxes in the back and doing dishes, earning just enough money to keep him in class. It doesn’t pay much, but they let him take home the day-old pastries to stay alive and that makes it a sweet gig. Easy. He doesn’t have to think, and no one ever bothers him. Sebastian likes that; he likes the smell of the beans, too, the crackling roasting sounds they made in the back of the store. He likes that it’s always warm, and that for the late night shift they schedule him alone and let him prop his feet up on the counter with a book, flipping pages as the clock runs down to two am.

“ _They let the bars out late in this town,”_ the store’s owner said, “ _Everyone can use a cup of coffee for the ride home.”_

And she’s right.

They come by ones and twos, trickling in after the bars close while the cabs are too busy to take them. Drunk girls from uni with frat boys following them like hyenas on wounded gazelles. Businessmen with their eyes full of wasted lives, ordering coffee black and rubbing their soft thumbs over their faces. The twenty-somethings from the city, tired and looking it, trying to cling on to their improbable dreams. They wear clothes too young for them, hole up in the back of the shop discussing obscure points of technology and the latest Pinterest crafts, and never tip Sebastian. Clean customers, compared with the junkies. There’s a support group up the block who break their meetings at midnight; Sebastian doesn’t know what they’re _for,_ but he knows the hollow-eyed look of addicts when he sees them. They sit in front, by the windows, bone-thin hands gone white and translucent in the streetlight.

Sebastian’s favorite people for the first three months of working there are the punks from the anarcho-vegan restaurant down the street, which lets out at 1:13 some nights and 5:49 others. “You can’t let them dictate when you wanna eat or when you wanna quit,” a woman tells Sebastian, stabbing her finger across the counter at his chest. She has blue fingernails and long hair that she’s twisted ribbons in, _Don’t! Buy! Thai!_ scrawled imperiously across her chest. “ _They_ don’t decide when you live.”

“If they pay me, they decide whatever the hell they want,” he replies. Pragmatic.

“Capitalist,” she accuses. Sebastian laughs. “We wouldn’t be starving if we all threw off their system,” she proclaims next, getting angrier. Her voice is loud enough that a couple of the twenty-somethings look over, distracted from their deep DIY.

“Lady,” Sebastian replies, “Have you ever reall _y starved?”_

And she has nothing to say.

That’s what the anarcho-vegan-libertarian-ism-an-uals-whatevers are like, though, and Sebastian loves them. Their anger, their fierceness, the desperate delusion that they could still change the world. He loves them because reality doesn’t really matter to them; there’s a Platonic ideal that they’ve got their fingernails dug into, a world where everyone can just work a little longer and try a little harder, and no one has to starve. Like drowning men, believing the person next to them is going to help push them up to the air.

Sebastian gives them free coffees, when he can. Another inch upwards against that endless, surfaceless sea. He imagines Augustus’s gleaming black shoes toeing them downwards.

Three months Seb lives like that; thumbing through paperback books waiting for the drunk and the broken and hopeful to ring the bell on the door. Three months he sells them coffee and teases them and lets them poke at his face and ask the same questions he’ll be hearing for the rest of his life.

_What happened to you?_

Then something new walks through the door.

She’s young, and terrified. Sebastian’s head snaps up on instinct before he realizes why he’s paying attention: tracking the way she stumbles over the floor. Something her tips him off, something about the hesitation and the shake in her hands as she reaches for her purse. Seb looks over her shoulder, searching for the shadow, but no one comes in after her.

Just a girl, terrified.

She’s wearing a low-cut blouse and a business suit, and she’s been crying – recently. “Hello,” she whispers, at the counter, not looking up.

Sebastian leans down, enough that his height didn’t put him so far above her. “Hi,” he replies. “What’ll it be?” The girl glances up and her eyes dart over Sebastian’s face. Her lips move soundlessly. She might be praying, struck into dumb silence by what she sees.

Sebastian sighs. “It’s alright,” he said. “It happened a long time ago.”

“I-I-I’m not concerned with your scars,” the girl stutters “Seb-bas-bas-tian.” She barely manages to choke through the word. On every breath she sobs, as if she’s seconds from falling apart on the floor.

It’s ringing alarm bells in Sebastian’s brain, so loud he doesn’t even remember to ask how she knows his name. “Are you alright?”

“Don’t mind the mouthpiece,” the girl gasps, “She’s got a radio in her ear. She’s just repeating what I’m saying.” Her eyes are wide – white all the way around. “You can call me M. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it down in person.”

 _Call the cops,_ Sebastian thinks to himself, but he can’t do that. Not while he’s carrying identification and working under a false name. Not while Augustus still believes he’s won and Sebastian died of his injuries six months ago.

“Not a problem,” Sebastian says, instead. “What’ll it be, M?”

“Caramel Macchiato,” the girl whimpers. “That’s all. Thanks.”She leaves a ten pound tip.

If it were a Bond movie, he would have run after her. Screwing the silencer onto his pistol, he would have grabbed her shoulder, ripped the earpiece from her ear, and demanded –

_Who are you?_

But Sebastian is a different breed of animal. He watches her go and pockets the ten pound note, quietly curious but not interested enough to hunt her down. He catches his own reflection in the shutting door, and looks away with more than the usual amount of discomfort. _Man, something is broken in you,_ he thinks to himself, _you don’t even really care what happens to her? Do you?_

No response.

A shred of an old fear whispers over his spine, and Sebastian picks up a cleaning rag. He starts wiping the counter down in long, smooth motions, polishing circles into the scratched and dented wood.

 _It could happen to you too, you know,_ a voice whispers, in the back of his head. _If you go after her you could end up in just the same place that she’s at. You wanna play hero? You? You’re terrified, you’re weak, you’ll let him –_

Augustus upends the cup.

Sebastian straightens so abruptly that one of the customers gives him a weird look. “Banged my hand,” he says, gruffly, cradling his knuckles to his chest like they’ve been hurt. Over the door the clock’s ticking on relentlessly towards three, but it’s fast. Sebastian has a long way to go yet.

***

It’s half-past eleven, the next time M sends someone in. Good timing; the coffee shop usually empties out around seven pm, and is dead by ten. The two hours between ten and midnight are about as slow as anything Sebastian has ever worked, but he doesn’t mind; engineering is a fuck of a major and any time he can spare to do homework is worth more than gold.

So when a man in a neatly cut suit and a blue tie pushes through the door, Sebastian is sitting at the counter bent over a particularly nasty set of equations, scowling to himself and chewing absentmindedly on the edge of an empty Styrofoam cup.

“What’ll it be?” he asks, without really looking up. If he could just figure out the voltage –

“Caramel Macchiato,” the guy grits out through his teeth. It sounds like it pains him. “And put a cherry on top, would you.” Not a question.

Sebastian looks up.

The man in front of him looks like he’s been slowly dissected. He’s furious; it’s all over his face. He’s terrified, too. Sebastian recognizes that look in someone. It’s the sort of aimless rage that comes with absolute helplessness, forced to humiliate yourself and unable even to struggle because you’re so ridiculously overmatched. The man’s face is turning red. His fat hands, on the counter, dig into themselves; driving his nails through his palm.

Sebastian can see the tell-tale wire of his ear-piece.

“You could come in yourself, you know,” Sebastian says, talking past the businessman. He realizes there’s a smile quirking at the side of his mouth. If nothing else, it’s interesting. Isn’t it? Seeing that sort of fear, out on display in public?

_Haven’t you had enough of fear? You’re sick. You’re twisted up, Sebastian Moran._

“They tell me the pictures don’t do your scars justice,” M says, using the businessman’s voice. “Is that how you ended up working nights. Were you scared of being seen.” The man refuses to modulate his voice, so it comes out in a flat monotone. Sebastian finds himself wondering what M would sound like – if he drones, like this, or if he lilts and pulls his words, if the questions would come across cruel or playful. M might have an accent. _He_ might be a woman.

Sebastian’s grin widens. “Look who’s talking.”

“I’m not afraid. Just careful.”

“No one else here, M.” Sebastian gestures around him with his pencil. “Unless you’re shy. Got a crush?”

The businessman makes a short, choking noise, and then manages, “You have no idea.”

Sebastian snorts, and stands up. He turns his back on the businessman, starts making the macchiato. It gives him something to do with his hands. “Some sort of criminal, then,” he calls over his shoulder, loud enough to carry. There’s a brief pause, like lag.

“You walked home without a jacket last night,” M says, changing the subject.

Sebastian finishes the drink and comes back, sliding it across the counter. “You watching me now?” He looks up, meeting the businessman’s eyes. Nothing to see there, nothing but incoherent rage and terror. Sebastian searches them anyways, looking for the man behind it all.

“What if I am,” M asks.

Sebastian wants to know how it’s said. Is it a challenge? Is it soft, a little bit shy? If M was here, at the counter, would he lean forward, would he grin at Sebastian, would he be biting his lip –

“I don’t own a jacket,” Sebastian says, by way of reply. It seems like enough for M.

The businessman pulls thirty pounds in crumpled bills out of his pocket and slams them on the counter, knocking his knuckles with rage. “Keep the change,” he growls.

“Always a pleasure,” Sebastian replies, with a wink that gets lost in translation.

***

She shows up in the news – that girl from the first night. They find her body by accident, almost. A boat going down the river picks up her coat with its rudder and drags her along, smashing her face against the rocks long enough that they can’t identify her by dental records.

They figure her out somehow, anyways. DNA. Microfibres. It’s a lot of science nothing to Sebastian, but eventually Scotland Yard says, _yes, this is the one, there’s been a horrific murder, show the town,_ and her photo is everywhere. Newstands. Busstops. Staring at Sebastian with those fearful brown eyes, hollow and round. _Should have called the police,_ she whispers, accusing him.

 _What were you to me?_ _I’ve got shit to do. I’ve got a life. I can’t call the police._

 _You could have saved me,_ she mumbles, tripping and stumbling and stuttering over the words. She’s standing beside her photo, dripping wet, staring at him. _You could still turn him in._

Sebastian keeps his head down, hugging his books tighter to his chest against the autumn chill. _Not my problem,_ he tells her, _I’ve got nothing to do with him._

***

The coat shows up on his doorstep the next week, and it’s beautiful. It’s off-the-rack from somewhere upscale, with the tags carefully cut off so Sebastian can’t tell exactly where. Or look up exactly how much it costs.

It’s black, lined with soft dark fur, and fits perfectly over the outer layer of his clothes. Wearing it, Sebastian is warm for the first time in weeks.

In the pocket, he finds a note; M, Sebastian learns, curves each one of his letters slow and carefully forwards, his hand steady on the pen. M has exquisite penmanship. The paper M has chosen is thick, a heavy-weight with a clean smell to it like fresh-washed linen.

 _Sebastian –_ M’s note says –

_I suppose you’re wondering, and I am sorry but I’m not going to tell you. Not yet._

_-M._

As if that’s supposed to be enough.

***

“I liked it,” Sebastian says, when the next person comes in wearing an earpiece. “Very nice.”

This time the man is tall, tall and clearly ex-military. He’s wearing a tight black shirt that shows off his muscular arms, and his crew-cut is cropped so close to his skull it’s barely more than a shadow. He yawns before giving M’s response.

“You’re alright taking gifts from me, then?”

Sebastian tilts his head, staring up at the guy. Crew-cut stares back, making eyes like he’s trying to spook Sebastian. There’s one thing about the military men; what’s wrong with Sebastian is normal for them. Whatever he’s thinking, nothing on his face is helpful to Sebastian.

Seb chews his words over in his mouth for a minute before he decides on, “Didn’t have blood on it, did it?”

“Every pound I paid with was dripping red.”

Sebastian glares. Crew-cut stares back expressionlessly. “Guess I’m not allowed to pretend you’re a shy businessman,” Sebastian concedes eventually. It’s a little bit of a jab, and he feels it. M doesn’t want to be lied to. He doesn’t want Sebastian to lie to himself. Alright, Seb can handle that. “Have you killed everyone I’ve spoken to?”

For a long moment, Crew-cut doesn’t say anything. It’s just after midnight and any minute now the junkies will start coming in. The place is quiet for now, music playing softly on the radio in the back, and there’s no sound except for the hum of the coffee machines and the buzz of the streetlight outside. Sebastian taps his pencil on the counter, over a line of equations so spidery and small Sebastian’s not even sure if he’ll be able to read them later.

“Gerry here’s a special case,” Crew-cut – Gerry – says. “He’s one of mine. Isn’t he cute.” Gerry makes a face, regretting the words, and digs through an invisible pocket in his skin-tight jeans. He comes out with a pen and paper, which he slides across the table to Sebastian. “Write down your phone number for me.”

Sebastian doesn’t move. He’s still got his pencil in one hand, dangling loosely from his fingers. “Why?”

“I text.”

“Doesn’t explain why you’d want to text me.”

There’s a pause, a brief hesitation, then Gerry reaches up to his ear. He draws out the ear-piece, and offers it across the table to Sebastian. Sebastian sees his hand reach up, dreamlike, and take the small piece of white plastic. He draws it back. He inserts it into his ear.

He’s not sure what he’s expecting.

A low, beautiful drawl fills his ear, interrupted only by the snap and crackle of a poor connection. “Sebastian,” M says. “You really are a torment for me.” M’s voice is deep – so deep Sebastian thinks he must be a large man, barrel chested, imposing. It’s a velvet purr, and it goes straight down through Sebastian’s stomach like a lightning bolt.

From the first time Sebastian hears M say his name, he knows M is going to fuck him.

“Write your phone number on the paper,” M commands. Sebastian feels his spine straighten in response to the tone, something instinctive in him taking over. He knows Gerry is staring at him, recording his reactions. He knows M will hear, later, exactly how his face looked when he took orders. Something deep in Sebastian squirms at the thought, deliciously uncomfortable. “Give it to Gerry. Am I clear?”

“Yes,” Sebastian says. It’s embarrassingly breathless. “M – “

“That’s all.”

“I have to ask –“

“That’s all, Sebastian.”

And silence.

Sebastian, slowly, unhooks the earpiece from his ear. He hands it back over to Gerry. He clicks the pen open, and writes his number on the paper; taking care to form each digit exactly, so there can be no confusion about where to reach him.

***

<Tell me what you’re studying in school. –M>

<I majored in engineering.>

<Why? –M>

<It makes the most guaranteed money.>

<Does that mean so very much to you, then? No protestations about your great passions? –M>

<I don’t want to be poor, ever again.>

<How very practical of you.–M>

<And if you could do anything? –M>

Sebastian thinks of the guns, thinks of nameless wars, thinks of his father’s shining black shoes. <I’d do what you do>

<No, you wouldn’t. –M>

<And don’t ever say that to me again. –M>

***

They find Sebastian outside of one of his late classes, a 6-9pm Biophotonics lecture that never fails to make him feel like he’s going through a blender.

But hey, at least he’s warm. He pulls M’s jacket tighter around him, burying his face in the soft warm fur. They pulled the angry businessman out of the river a few days ago, too. Decomposition had set in, but Sebastian had recognized him on the news by his fat, swollen hands.

There’s a detective on the case now, some posh prat from the telly who loves throwing his hands around and twirling his cape. Sebastian isn’t worried.

He thinks M might be unstoppable; in the old sense, in the sense of absolutes. Nothing, nowhere, nohow.

Seb’s still smiling, thinking about it, when they surround him; he’s nursing a cigarette, curled around it so the small ember warms his fingers.

There are four or five of them, which means he’s got a shot, and varsity – which means _they’ve_ got a shot. Sebastian drops into a protective stance automatically, tossing the cigarette aside and cursing himself for not watching his corners. His route home takes him through the campus gardens, a dark little shortcut where the path winks in and out of visibility from the road. There isn’t even a streetlight to show him their faces. They must be smiling, though. The frozen chip road crunches beneath Sebastian’s feet, and he raises his hands.

“Alright there, Igor?” one of them jokes. Sebastian knows him – not from back in the day, this isn’t good enough of a college for that. But the thug’s face is up around campus, on posters for the Student Union.

“Marshall,” Sebastian digs, out of his memory.

The boys hoot with laughter. “He knows you, don’t he?”

“Easy, easy,” Marshall grins, holding out his hands for silence. Sebastian snarls, knowing theatre when he sees it. “We don’t have a problem if Igor here has the answers we want.”

Sebastian doesn’t lower his fists. “What sort of answers are those?” His phone buzzes in his pocket.

“Seen you eyein’ my girlfriend. You think scum like you got a chance with the girls around here?”

For a moment Sebastian’s mind is utterly, completely blank. Then he blinks rapidly, and manages to get his grey matter back into gear. “You think _what?_ ”

“Claire. Sits in front. Passes you tests. Ringing a bell?”

“I’ve never even _talked_ to her.”

Marshall tilts his head to the side. “All about the way you look, innit?”

There’s a lot Sebastian could say to that. _You’re insane,_ or _she’s not exactly my type,_ or even _sorry I won’t do it again_ if he felt like running from the fight. But they both know this isn’t about some bitch batting her eyelashes. Sebastian snarls again, wordlessly, and hunkers deeper into his stance. This is about _him._ His face. His size. His shabby clothes and the way he had the _balls_ to think he could belong here.

“Look at him,” one of the boys says, “He’s a fucking animal.”

“You gunna lick my boots, dog?” Marshall mocks, half-laughing, swinging his hands around in a bad parody of Sebastian’s ready stance. “ ‘Cause I might forgive you if you put a little tongue into it.”

Sebastian doesn’t wait for him to drop into anything resembling proper fighting position; he just swings. It hits Marshall a little bit high, glancing painfully off his skull, and Sebastian feels the skin on his knuckles split like rotten fruit under pressure.

He drops Marshall, though. And that’s all that matters.

A low angry hum goes up from the boys around him like Sebastian’s kicked a hive of wasps, but he doesn’t care. He stands his ground with his bloody hands up to his chin, chest heaving with the force of his adrenaline-rich breath.

“Who’s next?” he demands.

Some part of Sebastian has been asking that question his whole life. _Who’s next?_ In school. _Who’s next?_ During basic. _Who’s next?_ That awful night they dragged him home, the last night he was a Moran. _Who’s next?_ Like the best life can offer Sebastian Moran is a series of punches to take, a series of opponents to try and grind him down. Now there’s these varsity boys with their pumped up pride and if they’re the latest thing the world has to throw they couldn’t possibly be the worst. Sebastian tosses his head defiantly to get the hair out of his eyes, and goes to meet them.

He holds his own, for a while. Longer than they expect. He levels two of them – even the one who pulls an old boxcutter and swings at his back. They can’t put more on Sebastian than a long, shallow cut on his forearm –

But someone figures out his blindspot eventually. They hit it hard and fast, moving constantly so Sebastian can’t ever quite see them.

Marshall is laughing. Someone throws a punch that connects solidly with Sebastian’s nose, and he doesn’t even see it start to happen. The ground is rushing up towards him, frozen chip road spattered with brilliant drops of scarlet like rubies scattered on diamond – like glowing fire –

Augustus upends the cup and all those brilliantbrightshininghot drops start raining down and Sebastian is burningscreamingdying he is onfire he is mad he is dyingscreaming _burning_ –

The next thing Sebastian sees is the same ground receding. He has no sense of how much time has passed, but someone’s got a hold of him by the back of the neck and they’re hauling him upwards. Sebastian tries to struggle. It’s useless.

“Steady on,” a familiar voice says, shocking Sebastian enough to keep him still for a moment.

Gerry pulls Sebastian up off his feet and dusts him off, holding Sebastian suspended by the nape of the neck like a puppy dog. “Alright?” he asks.

“Put me down,” Sebastian spits in return. It comes out red and bloody, and he wipes at his face with the back of his hand. The old injury has split again, over his lip, and he can taste copper in his mouth when he swallows. Gerry grunts as response and sets Sebastian gingerly on his feet, like he’s afraid Sebastian’s weight will break his legs. Sebastian scowls at him.

There’s still mud on the sleeve of Sebastian’s jacket, and he reaches up to brush it off. He even gets halfway through the motion when he freezes.

It’s ruined.

It’s utterly fucking _destroyed._ One of the boys got the lucky blow off with the boxcutter, Sebastian remembers that, but M’s beautiful jacket looks like he’s been dragging it through the mud and a butcher shop for weeks. It’s covered in thick black streaks and red spatter. When he shrugs it off to look at the back, he can see the slashed lines where the boxcutter has rent it open. They must have come closer than he thought. Stuffing pokes through, angelic white, glowing in the dim light. Sebastian touches it, fingers trembling, and the delicate fibers stain instantly at his touch.

“Aw, man…” he moans, quietly, forgetting all about Gerry for a minute. M’s going to be furious. _Sebastian_ is furious. He’ll have to wear it, still, the rest of the winter – stitch up the cuts himself and try to pretend the stains will wash out. It’s still the warmest thing he has and it was beautiful, once.

But he fucking ruined it.

Gerry’s hand claps down on Sebastian’s shoulder. “I’ll tell him,” he says. “You can bet I’ll tell M exactly what happened.”

Sebastian flinches out of his grip instantly, scowling. “Who the fuck asked you?” he snaps. He twirls the jacket back around his shoulders, pretending like the fur isn’t sticky and scabbed with his blood. “I don’t need your help.”

“Okay, kiddo,” Gerry replies good-naturedly, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Just, do me a favor, and respond to his texts. Sure does hate it when you ignore him.”

“Fuck _off_.”

But Sebastian opens his phone as he goes anyways, stumbling blearily towards home.

***

<They’re surrounding you. –M>

<You do realize they plan to FIGHT you. –M>

<Well, that was cheap. I’m sending in Gerry. –M>

<Hope you don’t feel TERRIBLY emasculated. –M>

<You did very well for a lady your age. –M>

<Eat shit and die.>

<Ah, sleeping beauty. Still with us, I see. –M>

<I had it fine on my own.>

<I’m sure you did. –M>

<And if they hadn’t taken advantage of your disability, you might even have won. –M>

<That’s the thing, Sebastian – what do you do when no one is EVER going to fight you fair? –M>

<Start fighting dirty.>

<There’s my good boy. New jacket on its way. –M>

Sebastian doesn’t know why the text makes him glow, long hours afterwards: sitting in his leaky bathtub nursing his bruises and rolling the words over and over in his head. _My good boy._ Why should it matter? _My good boy._

He certainly doesn’t care if he pleases M.

***

It’s a week, a long torturous week, before he hears from M again.

Sebastian does all the same things; he works his nights at the coffee shop, he goes to his lectures, he keeps his head down. He wraps himself up in the new jacket M gives him and breathes deep, trying to guess at the smell of M’s skin.

He turns his face away from the TV screens, especially when they play the news; especially when they play politics. Sometimes the House of Lords pops up and there _he_ is – democratically elected to the same old power that he was born in to. It makes Sebastian want to spit.

 _You’re a Moran,_ he says, in Sebastian’s nightmares. _Do you know what that means?_

He upends the cup slowly. Sebastian screams.

Being a Moran means power, power and control. Sebastian ducks his head whenever he passes a CCTV, turning his head to the side so only the clean half shows. This way, maybe, they won’t know it’s him when they look.

<Why do you do that? –M>

<Do what?>

<Turn your face. –M>

It’s three o’clock on a Tuesday and Sebastian’s next class doesn’t start until half-past, so he’s sneaking a cigarette behind the mathematics building. He’s been idling around the library, half-heartedly re-reading an engineering textbook in case it started to make sense. It hasn’t. Sebastian’s given up hope.

The air is crisp and cool, but still dry, and the autumn leaves are swirling in lazy circles around the campus, chased by the wind. Sebastian takes a drag of his last cigarette and leaves it in his lips to type back.

<I’m shy.> He doesn’t question M watching the CCTV. Seems to Sebastian that M is a lot like Augustus, in a way; rules of man and physics are for lesser beings, who should stay out of their way.

<Or you know someone’s looking for you. It certainly is distinctive, that face of yours. –M>

<Do you WANT something?> Sebastian can’t help himself. He hasn’t thanked M yet – not for the new jacket, or for sending Gerry in to rescue him.

<Actually, yes. –M>

<I want to hire you.-M>

Sebastian’s fingers pause on the keys in disbelief, and he takes a long drag of his smoke before he responds. <Hire me.>

M’s text is nearly immediate; he must be waiting by the phone. <That’s what I said.-M>

<What could I possibly do for you?>

<I’m not talking about a role in my business.-M>

Sebastian frowns, exhaling a white cloud of nicotine at a group of passing first year girls. They shoot him dirty looks, and Sebastian jams the cigarette between his teeth as he stabs out a reply to M. <What ARE you talking about?>

<A mutually beneficial arrangement.-M>

It seems oddly coy. Sebastian’s starting to get nervous. <Spit it out, M.>

<You see, you don’t want to be poor. -M> Three dots pop up immediately after the message.

<And I consider my own amusement to be the single most worthwhile thing to spend money on.-M> Still typing.

<Let me put this in terms on par with your intelligence.-M>

<You ARE familiar with the term ‘Sugar Daddy,’ aren’t you? –M>

Sebastian stares at his phone in silence for a long moment, unable to really process what he’s just seen. After a moment, it buzzes again.

<Seeing as you’re not talking, I’ll assume you can’t. How about this. I’m going to call you. If you want what I’m offering, you pick up. You say nothing. I’ll list the terms, and you don’t even have to answer until I ask you a direct question. You have five minutes to consider. –M>

Sebastian’s heart thuds off rhythm, missing a beat in his chest.

***

And now here he is. Black car, tailor-made suit bought with blood money, walking up the steps of M’s mansion. It’s an old house – old and imposing, renovated with all the newest innovations in security and defense. Sebastian sees the wink of cameras behind the intricately carved mouldings, and knows that M is watching.

The manservant opens the door, ushers Sebastian in to a brightly lit hall. After the dingy apartment, M’s house sings with colour. It’s rich and opulent; all royal blues and deep purples and vivid, obscene scarlets. It shouldn’t work. It’s a mishmash of colours and styles like a hurricane, checker-board prints and vibrant paisleys ruched up next to delicate white lace and elegant Grecian marble. Somehow, it does; all the knick-knacks and clutter adding up to a symmetrical chaos. _Nouveaux Victorian,_ Sebastian thinks, catching the silver-slick gleam of a glock discarded on one of the mahogany side-tables. _Or maybe_ _Psycho-chic._

“This way, sir.” The manservant gestures to his left. Through a set of preposterous double-doors there’s a library; floor to ceiling shelves stacked with books, and great bay windows looking out into the blustery October night.

M is perched in one of them, angling a glass on his knee and staring in silhouette out at the trees. Sebastian knows it’s him before he speaks. Seb knows even before the manservant bows and shuts the doors of the library, the heavy wood settling in to place with a _click_.

M’s not quite what he expected: the man sitting in the window is small, slight and slender, a mere wisp of a thing with long pale fingers and dark hair that curls delicately over his brow. He’s Dionysus, not Apollo. He looks younger than Sebastian, with his face turned away.

But still, Sebastian knows. “M.”

M looks up. He’s older than Sebastian thought – thirty, at least, with deep-set hollow eyes and a square Irish jaw. “Sebastian,” he acknowledges. As soon as Sebastian sees the eyes, he knows he’s got it right. M’s eyes are dark, but there’s a playful glimmer about them; something that makes Sebastian think he must have been grinning, on the other side of the earpiece.

That voice, though – that’s the killer. Sebastian feels it go through him like a hot knife through butter, and wants to shut his eyes for the strength of blindness. He doesn’t dare. “We had an agreement,” he says, instead.

M’s eyebrows raise. “Oh, yes,” he says. “We certainly did.” Then he points at a table in front of him. “Sit down.”

It seems a waste of time: Sebastian knows what he’s here for, and it’s not the pleasure of his company. He frowns. “If you want – “

“I’m not going to fuck you in the library, Sebastian, and I’m certainly not going to do it before we speak. Sit. _Down._ ” M’s voice takes on that sharp crack of command that makes Sebastian’s spine feel like it’s been connected to an electric wire, and Sebastian sits down heavily at the table. The chair creaks underneath him, adjusting to his weight.

The library looks old, now that Sebastian has a chance to glance around; it’s the burgundy carpets and leather bindings, the wooden chairs stuffed with antique purple cushions. Sebastian shifts. The room makes him uncomfortable, looming over him, full of weight and history.

He looks at M instead. M doesn’t sit at the table across from Sebastian, at least not immediately. He leans against the moulding of the window with an elegant grace that makes Sebastian feel like a knobbly-kneed colt, completely self-possessed. Sebastian envies him, wants him with a force that makes Sebastian’s thighs twitch.

M, on the other hand, looks frustrated more than anything else. “Seems like there are some _it_ sy _bit_ sy things you need to be clear on before we continue,” he says. M’s arms cross in front of him. His mouth is a sharp disapproving slash in his face, wide above his square jaw. There’s stubble on his chin and something cold in his eyes when he levels a look at Sebastian, something that feels uncomfortably like disapproval.

Sebastian fidgets. He knows he’s fucked it up – it’s what he always does. The feeling makes him wish he could sink through the floor, forget this whole thing entirely. _My fault – it’s always my fault – I made Augustus and now I made M –_

Seb can’t keep Jim’s eyes, so he looks down at his hands instead. His squared-off, chewed-up knuckles look out of place above the finely tailored suit.

“They knew you at Jasper Littman,” M says.

Sebastian looks up, startled into a frown. “What?”

M steps neatly away from the mouldings, and heads over to the sideboard. He continues talking without even looking over his shoulder. “I said, _Sebastian Moran,_ 48-33-41, and he said, _ah yes, the usual fabric, then?”_ When he pours himself a drink M curves the tumbler expertly, not spilling a drop. He recaps the bottle and puts it back in the cupboard. “I’m impressed you haven’t gained any weight since he saw you.” Sebastian can’t tell what it is, but the smell of it burns like peat-fire.

“I never told you my last name,” he tells M, even though he knows it doesn’t matter. Sebastian’s head keeps reeling drunkenly from one thought to the next, never able to hold on to something for long.

“Don’t get hung up on petty details.” M comes back to the table and slips himself in to one of the chairs. Maybe Sebastian can’t think because of M; the sheer presence of M draining all the oxygen from the room. It makes sense. M looks like something out of an old story, all sharp bones and dark eyes and pale, unflinching malice. The drink in his hand is a pure, beautiful amber, and the glass clinks neatly as he sets it on the table. M leans forward with a breathless smile playing on his lips and the smell of whisky on his breath. He looks like a lion, like Sebastian is a wounded gazelle.

“Now _how_ did a Saville Row tailor know about _you?”_ he asks.His eyes bore into Sebastian. “You’re a mediocre engineer – bright, but mediocre – with a talent for fistfights and a truly amazing – “ M’s hand darts up faster than Sebastian can track, and his fingers tap on Sebastian’s ruined cheek. Just once, over the bone, under the eyesocket, where some of the worst scarring is still red and keloid-raised. “Do you think it’s enough to remember you by?”

Sebastian finds himself flushing, jerking his head away from Jim’s reach. He puts his hands on the table and shoves himself to his feet. “Go fuck yourself,” he says flatly. _No one_ touches what Augustus did. Not even M. “That’s it.” He kicks his chair over, out of his way, and stomps towards the door.

_Fuck them. Fuck them both._

“But you couldn’t _afford_ Jasper Littman, could you?” M continues, without pause. “Good thing _Daddy_ could.”

It’s the logical step; if he knows Sebastian’s last name, he knows who Sebastian’s father was. Somehow, it still brings Seb up short. Sebastian stops. Hand on the doorknob. Heart in his mouth. _Don’t do this. He’s a criminal. He’s probably got a hundred men around here, waiting for you to fuck up, there’s probably a gun trained on you right now_ –

Sebastian never learned to walk away from a fight. He turns back. “What did you say?” he asks. Low. Dangerous.

M smiles. “Your esteemed father, Baron Moran. Peer in the House of Lords. How strange, that he doesn’t seem to care when you starve.”

Sebastian is frozen, and he doesn’t know if it’s from fury or fear.

M lifts a hand, examining his nails. “You know,” he says speculatively, “I meant to ransom you at first. I thought maybe he didn’t know where you were. Maybe he’d pay a few million to have his son back alive.” M drops his hand to look at Sebastian, straight on. He has a hypnotists eyes; infinitely deep, like you could fall in them forever. As Sebastian stares M stands, swaying slightly, like a snake-charmer. Sebastian can’t look away. He’s transfixed. He watches M’s hips as M paces off the floor towards him, slow and steady, a predator cornering its prey. “ _Then,_ I thought it’d be more fun to wait a couple years. Change you around a bit. _Simon says kill your friends…_ Isn’t that a better idea? You’d really make a pretty time bomb.”

Sebastian contributes a short, horrified silence. He’s frozen in that awful mix of fear and desire. M tilts his head back to smile at Sebastian, blissful, and Seb couldn’t move even if he wanted to. He can’t even turn the doorknob in his hand. M is short enough that when he looks up at Sebastian he’s baring his throat, and it should seem vulnerable but it doesn’t. “I thought maybe I’d brainwash you,” M says, thoughtfully, “And then when he finally hopped you out to some meeting in Parliament or – “ M waves his hand, encompassing the world of flashing lights and TV screens – “I’d pull your trigger and you’d kill them all for me.” He grins, picturing it; his black eyes flash with amusement.

Sebastian can see it too. M wouldn’t even break a sweat doing it. Sebastian imagines himself, broken down and sobbing under M’s hands, promising M anything for the hope of freedom. Promising M anything for the hope of affection. _My good boy. You’ll kill them for me, won’t you?_

It’s not hard to imagine. Sebastian shivers.

M reaches up and places his hand on Sebastian’s face as if he has every right in the world to do it. Sebastian can’t even bring himself to jump: he just stills, like a deer in the headlights.

“Then,” M says, quietly, his thumb stroking circles on Sebastian’s skin, “I thought, _maybe I’ll make him gay, too._ Maybe I’d send you home _hungry,_ and after you killed them all I could put the pretty pictures up for the press to see. They do love a scandal, after all. And I thought –“ M grins, at a private joke, “Sebastian Moran, he’d look good with his lips around my cock.”

It should be disgusting, but it isn’t. “Don’t,” Sebastian manages, just the one word. He’s not sure why he says it: _Don’t, because I want it, because you could._

“But then, that was before I saw this.” M’s thumb strokes down the twisted wreck of scar tissue on the side of Sebastian’s face, tracing what remains of his cheek. “They’re right, photos don’t do it justice. _He_ did that, didn’t he?”

Sebastian can’t answer, but M knows. He knows.

Augustus upends the cup. Slowly. Sebastian screams. And screams and screams and screams and screams –

M’s thumb digs in, drawing Sebastian back to the present. He’s watching Sebastian with his over-intense, fever-bright eyes. Sebastian doesn’t doubt he saw it; the whole nightmare, flashing over Sebastian’s face like it’s written there in more than scar tissue.

“The thing about my fantasies, Sebastian, is that they all involved me keeping you.” M’s eyes search Sebastian’s face, desperate for a hint of recognition. “See how they moved? You went from _bait_ to _tool_ to _fucktoy **remarkably**_ fast. You didn’t even have to _meet_ me to convince me you were worth having. Aren’t you special?” He taps Sebastian’s cheek, an obscure gesture of affection. It makes Sebastian blink in his good eye. “Daddy may not want you, but believe me, _I do.”_

Sebastian swallows. “You told me once that I was never supposed to talk to you about doing what you do,” he manages.

M laughs. “I thought you were a spoiled rich boy with a clean record and nothing to offer me. Look how far you’ve come!”

It doesn’t sound like a complement. “And now?” Sebastian insists, pressing the point.

“Now,” M hesitates on the word like he’s savouring it. “Now I’ve seen you in a fight.”

“I lost,” Sebastian scoffs.

M looks at Sebastian, straight through him, X-ray vision. Severing Sebastian from everything but M’s eyes. “You think I missed that?” He raises his eyebrows. “But the way you move, Sebastian, it isn’t _hopeless._ I think I can use you. Isn’t that enough? Isn’t that more than anyone else has ever said?”

Sebastian flinches. _You’re useless, you know,_ Augustus says, _If I thought there was any chance you’d ever be a help to me, I wouldn’t do this. But you should have seen it coming. Acting like you have –_

Then M’s hands are on Sebastian’s cheeks again, grounding him, drawing him back to the inescapable present. “Sebastian,” he says, fierce with meaning, face shoved close to Seb’s, “You have to understand what I’m offering you. I still plan on breaking you. _Brainwashing_ you _._ ” He digs his fingernails in, until Sebastian’s skull aches like M’s tearing out bones. “I’m going to rip out everything he put in you,” M hisses, like a promise. And In return, Sebastian, I’ll… _maintain_ you. Fine suits. Fast cars. Beautiful guns. Stay here, and I’ll pour an extraordinary amount of money into making you the most spoiled little princess on the block. You will never, never be poor. I promise you that.” He looks like he’s promising much more; his bright eyes gleaming and mad, his hands dug white-knuckle tight into Sebastian’s skull.

If he was an older man, Sebastian might have heard the danger in it. He might have had enough pride to walk away. There are a hundred things men of honour are supposed to say in such situations. _You can’t buy me,_ maybe. _I don’t need you to take care of myself._

Sebastian is eighteen – barely – he is awkward, and unsure, and he has never been wanted before – he is drowning in the unending depths of M’s eyes.

“Alright,” Sebastian says, “Where do we start?”

M stands, away from Sebastian, and straightens his suit. It’s barely been creased “We start in the bedroom,” he says, and holds out one hand for Sebastian to proceed him.

***

And so they do.

When the bedroom door clicks shut behind them, M leans up against it and watches Sebastian narrowly, his head tilted to one side like a quizzical cat.

Sebastian flexes the fingers on one of his hands nervously, put off guard by the calm surveillance. “Do you want me to turn in a circle?” he asks, finally, anxiousness making his voice sharp. He can feel a muscle in his leg jump, hard with the force of his heartbeat.

M smiles, as if that’s what he’s been waiting for, and pushes himself off the door. “Will it make you feel any better?” he stalks over the floor to Sebastian on the balls of his feet, his tread almost silent. The room is bright – it’s something about the way the windows are positioned, and the decorative mirrors scattered around the walls. Every way Sebastian turns he can see himself, reflected starkly and uncompromisingly from every angle. Beneath the bespoke suit, at least he’s covered, but his face –

M puts his hands on Sebastian’s chest and slides them upwards, dragging Sebastian’s eyes back down to him. “You’re nervous, aren’t you?” he asks.

“No.”

“Yes.” M smiles – catlike again, self-satisfied and smooth. “You’re terrified. Why, though? You must have realized that I want you despite…” He doesn’t say it. He slides his hands up further, cupping Sebastian’s face, feeling the dissolute textures of Sebastian’s skin, but he still doesn’t name it. “Is that all you’re worried about? Your looks?”

At some point, Sebastian should say. _I’ve never,_ or maybe _there wasn’t really a chance to before._ But every time he tries his tongue seems to grow in his mouth until it chokes out sound. Better if M doesn’t guess – Sebastian’s seen enough porn that he’s sure he can fake it, make it good enough that M won’t kick him out.

M leans up – on his tiptoes – and draws Sebastian’s face down towards him. Sebastian feels his breath catch in his mouth. M’s hands are warm and his fingers are soft, softer than Sebastian might have believed was possible. He draws Sebastian down. Sebastian shuts his eyes, feeling on one side how his eyelashes brush his skin. On the other side, he feels nothing.

When M’s lips press over his Sebastian feels it on one side; only one side, and he shudders at the awful half-numbness.

Then M draws back, just enough that they are no longer touching. “You’re a virgin,” he breathes.

“No,” Sebastian replies, defensively, and then – “Yes, but I’m eighteen –“

M laughs. “Sebastian,” he purrs, “If you think the law could stop me from fucking you, you are deeply, deeply mistaken.” For some reason, it’s the hottest thing Sebastian has ever heard anyone say. It hits him hard in the stomach, breathless and mindless; nothing but a fast, overwhelming punch of desire. Sebastian makes a short noise, in his chest. That makes M laugh, again, then M is pulling away and drawing Sebastian towards the massive four-posted bed. He doesn’t hold Sebastian’s hand as much as grab Sebastian by the wrist, his thumb poised elegantly over the fragile skin of Sebastian’s pulse.

“I mean, I’m going to fuck you anyways,” he says, nonchalantly. “But you might have _mentioned.”_

“Never came up,” Sebastian manages, his voice only a little bit strained. M grins. He puts both hands on Sebastian’s shoulders and shoves him backwards, towards the bed. Sebastian, taking the hint, sits down. He’s too big for M to move him by force, but there’s a curious fear about it anyways; like the consequences for disobedience would be worse than physical.

Sebastian takes a slow breath to steady himself. He shouldn’t be feeling like this. He shouldn’t think like this – this awful, guilty mix of anticipation and fear. He’s terrified of M. He wants M. He doesn’t really know what’s happening, but it’s lighting him on fire somewhere he’s always been dark, before.

“This really _is_ unfair,” M says, “Let me guess; you’ve always been ashamed of your sexuality, good Catholic boy. But your _masochism –_ that, you didn’t even have a word for.” He’s stripping; quick efficient motions drawing his tie from around his neck. Sebastian watches him, silent. He can’t think of anything to say. There’s something about the coiled power in M’s motions that makes his mouth go dry. M drops his tie on an armchair, and rolls up his sleeves, turning back to the bed. “And the fact that you think you’re a monster effectively cut you off, didn’t it?” He stands in front of Sebastian, hands twitching at his sides, and smiles. “Too guilty to believe that what you were feeling was anything but a sin. Now look at you.” M’s smile deepens. “They’ve abandoned the only real innocent in London to _me_.”

The room is too hot, and Sebastian can’t think of anything to say. “I’m not an innocent,” he tries.

M stretches his neck out to the side, until the bones of his spine catch and pop. “You don’t even know what it is that you want.”

“Sex – “

“Not quite.”

“Alright,” Sebastian grumbles, conceding. It doesn’t seem enough – the simple in-and-out of porn antics. The sort of thing he used to imagine to himself, fumbling under the blankets. Back before his body was a source of shame. “Tell me what I want.”

“Domination,” M says back, easily, as if the answer had been waiting on the tip of his tongue. “You want to be _owned_ , dearest. Isn’t it simple? And you want to be _hurt_ , a little bit, too.”

Sebastian ignores the twinge at the top of his stomach, and says. “Who would want that?”

M leans forwards, braces himself on Sebastian’s knees. He catches Sebastian’s gaze and holds it. There’s something terrifyingly intimate about it; he just _looks_ at Sebastian, deep, without interruption, letting himself bore further and further through Sebastian’s eyes to his mind. Sebastian’s heartbeat picks up, and he finds himself caught in a breathless anticipation – wishing something horrible would happen – wanting M to do some terrible, unspeakable thing to him. He shivers, and doesn’t know why.

“There,” M says, softly, “See?” He leans forward, and presses his lips to Sebastian’s forehead. Sebastian shuts his eyes, and lets himself shudder; his fingers gripping tighter to the bedspread. He feels terrifyingly vulnerable; but there’s something good about it, something _right_. He trusts M. He doesn’t trust M.

There are brutal flashes in Sebastian’s head of the things he wants M to do, half-imagined, half-remembered, and they scare him to the bone.

He feels M’s fingers at his tie, pulling it loose. Then the buttons of his suit. As M undresses him, pushing the jacket off his shoulders, he leans down to kiss Sebastian again. This time, the press of his mouth is more purposeful. His tongue licks at Sebastian’s mouth twice before Sebastian thinks to part his lips. Then M is dismantling him, taking him apart with teeth and tongue as his hands strip away the thin armor of Sebastian’s clothes.

Seb can’t do much about it. He can’t even think. He tries to give back a third of what he gets and doesn’t come close, chasing after M’s tongue and paying for it in the scrape of M’s teeth. It makes him moan, and he feels M’s mouth close over the sound; devouring it straight out of Sebastian’s lungs.

Then he’s shirtless, and the cool air of the room is prickling over his skin, and Sebastian remembers that he’s supposed to be ashamed.

He gets a hand up between them. “Wait – “

M pulls back, reluctantly, dark eyes glittering as he hovers predatorily over Sebastian. “What,” he demands, flat syllable; not unkind but impatient, like if he doesn’t get an explanation right away he’ll keep going.

Sebastian’s hand presses flat on M’s still-clothed chest, tan against the crisp white of M’s shirt. “It’s just, I – “

He knows the exact moment M sees. M’s pupils are blown but when he looks at Sebastian’s chest, they expand again – devouring M’s iris entirely. “Ah,” M murmurs. He knocks Sebastian’s hand away, easily, as if Sebastian is the one that’s a hundred pounds smaller than _him_. “But I still won’t have you stopping me, pet.”

M steps back from the bed and goes over to a wardrobe at the side of the room. Sebastian can see he’s aroused; somehow, M still moves with that preternatural grace. When he comes back, there’s nothing comical about his movements; not even the visible press of his erection against his pants. It doesn’t look _funny._ It makes Sebastian’s head go light and his fingertips tingle, like there isn’t enough blood in his body to reach them.

M sets a bottle of lube by the side of the bed and holds up a pair of handcuffs. “Behind your back,” he says. When Sebastian hesitates, M raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t say anything else.

 _Firstly,_ Sebastian thinks, _you will not question me._

He puts his hands behind his back. M reaches around him to ratchet the handcuffs shut around Sebastian’s wrists. For a brief moment, they’re pressed together, chest to chest, M’s head nearly on Sebastian’s shoulder as he tries to get the cuffs tight with his shorter arms. Sebastian feels M’s heartbeat, the steady inhale-exhale of M’s breath. He feels M’s cock press against his thigh, hard with arousal. Sebastian can _smell_ it – he thought that’d be a myth, but he can smell sex on the air, the salty-musk smell of sweat and something else –

M presses a kiss into Sebastian’s neck before he pulls back, right over the jugular, where the blood is close to the skin. Then he places his clever, pale hands on Sebastian’s chest, and he traces the scars. Slowly –torturously slowly – exploring them with the advantage of Sebastian being restrained. A few times, Sebastian twitches, trying to get away, but it’s pointless. There’s no escape.

M holds him where he is, and _examines_ him. Sebastian has never felt so hollow, so absolutely desperate for someone, then when he’s transfixed by M’s careful dissection.

It makes it worse to know that M is flawless, and Sebastian is a story-book monster. What happened to Sebastian’s face – _upends the cup – and Sebastian screams –_ trickled down over his chest. One side of Sebastian is pitted, deep thick divots of smooth skin at odds with the rest of him. They look, Sebastian thinks, a little bit like bolt-holes; like someone tried to drive nails through him to hold him together. In a few places they are still keloid-red, still angry and raised. Sebastian is textured. Sebastian is broken.

M’s index finger stops near the hollow of Sebastian’s throat, and Sebastian shuts his eyes. He trembles. It’s shame – he can feel it, white hot and burning in him – but it’s so close to desire that Sebastian can’t help the hard, desperate wanting growing in the pit of his stomach.

He’s getting off on the embarrassment of it, and the humiliation makes him whimper.

“Poor thing,” M murmurs, delighted. Sebastian stays where he is as M bends down, pressing his lips to the scars. “This is what stopped you from chasing those uni boys, isn’t it? He _ruined_ you.” M sounds like he’s gloating.

Sebastian hates himself for the awful thrill that goes through him, hearing it out loud. “I’m not,” he starts, but he can’t bring himself to say ‘ _ruined’ –_ because, part of him thinks, it’s true. He is ruined. He’s damaged goods.

“You are,” M whispers back. “My poor broken boy.” He pushes Sebastian until Sebastian lies back on the bed, awkward with his hands pinned beneath them. As M kisses over Sebastian’s hipbone, fingers splayed on the ruined skin over Seb’s ribs, Sebastian’s fingers start to go numb. “He took you and he tore you all up.”

Sebastian sucks in a racking breath, not able to speak. It feels like it’s choking him. He’s suffocating. He can’t tell if he’s going to cry or if he wants to come. The breathless pressure building in his chest is the same as he remembers from those desperate nights of mindless pleasure – and there’s that hot guilty thrill in his stomach –

“It’s the best thing about you.” M is pushing him again now, gentle but insistent, and Sebastian allows himself to be flipped over to his stomach. “Do you know why? …Oh, _Sebastian._ ” Seb’s back is worse than his front, he knows; a patchwork of whipping scars like a criss-cross game up his spine.

“I don’t – I don’t know – “ Sebastian dangles off the edge of the bed and he doesn’t think it’s coincidence that the position he’s in makes him put at least a little bit of his weight on his hips, trapping his cock between his stomach and the mattress. The only way to alleviate it is to stand on his tiptoes, bracing himself on his chest. He feels the tip of his cock brush wetly against his bare skin, precum beading at his tip, and moans. M laughs. He puts his hand on the back of Sebastian’s head and shoves it downwards, into the sheets, until all Sebastian can see is the red texture of the comforter, the soft glow of the light beyond its folds.

M wraps himself around Sebastian from behind and those clever fingers find Sebastian’s belt buckle. “You can’t think of a single reason why I’d like you like this?” he teases, pulling it open. The button next. The zipper. Sebastian’s cock is a hair away from M’s fingertips, and he shudders – trying to arch into it, trying to get even the slightest touch.

“No,” he gasps.

M laughs again. He works Sebastian’s pants down carefully, inch by inch, always cautious not to even brush against Sebastian’s cock. It makes Seb whimper, catching his lip in his teeth and grinding himself forward against the bedspread.

“They’re idiots, if they can’t see,” Moriarty whispers, when Seb is naked. He presses his lips to the scars at the base of Seb’s spine, just over where his tailbone starts. “And it kept them from you. Every single person who would have touched you, not knowing the value of what you were, they stayed away.” There’s a pop as he opens the bottle of lube, and fear surges hard and fast up into Sebastian’s throat.

“M –“

“Shhh.”

Sebastian can’t see anything but the bedspread. Crimson as blood. M’s fingers stroke down his spine. Sebastian doesn’t know anything about him – _anything –_ except that he’s a killer, and he’s deadly intelligent and nearly twice Sebastian’s age, and he’s promised to take Sebastian apart –

“So the only person who’s ever touched you is me, Sebastian. Do you see?”

Sebastian gasps for breath, caught in the awful paralysis between fear and desire.

When M’s fingers enter him it feels, at first, like the violation he was always told it would be. Sebastian squirms, feeling uncomfortable and full, and he hears M chuckle. “Don’t like that?” M asks, amused.

Sebastian huffs, turning his face and pulling at the cuffs like it can help him escape. “No,” he admits, then grits his teeth. “Whatever, just get it over w-“ He never finishes the sentence. M laughs like he’s expected nothing less from Sebastian, twists his fingers, and pushes _upwards_ and _in_ and _there –_

Sebastian feels his body spasm as though he has nothing to do with it.

White-hot lightning rides in his veins instead of blood and a brilliant hot heat surges out from the pit of his stomach to the tips of his toes and he is pure, infinite light –

“Oh,” he gasps.

“There?” M asks, mock-solicitous. He does it again, harder, stabbing something in Sebastian that makes the whole world go distant and warm.

“Yes,” Sebastian pants. He tries to shove himself down onto M’s fingers, but he’s got nothing in this position, no leverage, nothing. “Shit, yes –“

“Say please.” M’s fingers stroke over _that_ one last time and withdraw, and Sebastian is left hollow – the sweat on his skin doing nothing to cool him – his chest heaving against the blankets as he gasps for air.

He doesn’t even hesitate. “Please.”

M laughs at him, mocking and cruel. “Is _that_ the best you can do?”

And Sebastian thrills with the humiliation of it, and he bucks himself back into M’s fingers as much as he dares, and he begs, shameless and wanting. “M, _please,_ Christ, _please,_ I want – “

“You don’t know what you want,” M says, for the second time, but this time Sebastian can take a good guess.

“ _Fuck_ me!”

“You want this?” M grinds himself forward, rubbing his clothed cock against Sebastian’s naked thigh, just as his fingers stab upwards. He’s just on the edge of the right spot but not quite, missing it deliberately, and Sebastian moans. “I’ve only got two in you,” M tells him. “It’s going to _burn,_ if I fuck you now.” Sebastian doesn’t care. He grinds himself as far back as he can on M’s two slender fingers, wanting more, wanting oblivion.

“Suppose it’s only fair to give you a choice,” M whispers, breath hot on Sebastian’s neck. “Here’s the deal: I’ll stretch you out enough that my cock isn’t going to _tear_ you, and leave you wanting the whole time _or_ I’ll hit your prostate _right now_ while I fuck you. Immediately. One or the other, baby boy.” He nips at the skin of Sebastian’s back, a bright spot of pain, and his fingers never stop moving. That violating-uncomfortable-wonderful feeling derails every thought that might go through Sebastian’s mind.

He’s in no fit state to weigh options. He supposes M knows that.

“Fuck me,” he gasps, “Fuck me, _M,_ **_please._ ”**

M laughs. It was never really a choice, after all. There was never anything but the illusion of control. He pulls back and there’s a moment where Sebastian feels the lube drying cool between his thighs; the sweat on his back prickling his scars in the cold air. He hears M slicking himself, smooth purposeful movements, and then M’s hands grab Sebastian’s hips and haul him backwards until his ass is completely off the bed.

“Can’t have you rutting yourself against the mattress,” M hisses. Sebastian moans again for the denial – not quite knowing why it drives him mad to have M control him like this but wanting it, somewhere deep and hungry in his heart. Wanting M to use him, leave him fucked-out and unsatisfied, even, if it meant that M handled him with this beautiful, awful disdain –

A hot, blunt heat presses at Sebastian’s backside.

“Here you are, little masochist,” M tells him, gleeful and malicious, “What do you think of this?” and then he slams home.

One hard thrust.

Sebastian supposes it hurts; supposes somewhere that nerves are screaming, that his body is shuddering and jerking under M’s hard grip, that he’s bucking and writhing and crying out wordlessly for the sheer hot roar of the pain. But there’s more than that, too. M thrusts into him and Sebastian is severed from himself, entirely, and the pain and the pleasure drive into his brain like nails, leaving him empty of everything but pure sensation. Every thrust hits his prostate. Every motion of M’s hips pulls him inside out, and Sebastian is drowning – and Sebastian is suffocating – and every inch of Sebastian’s broken body is singing, pushing back against M, wanting more and more and more.

M claws at Sebastian’s hips, gets a grip on his bound hands and wrenches him off the bed, slamming his hips into Sebastian over and over like he’s trying to wring Sebastian’s body entirely dry. Sebastian feels his mind like glass, shattering, iridescent crystals driven out in every direction, and inside him something is pushing outwards – something bigger than his skin –

“M,” he gasps, “Please – please –“

And M reaches down, fumbling one hand between Sebastian and the sheets, where Sebastian’s cock is hard and aching and wet from his own slick precum.

Sebastian feels M’s grip tighten around his base. He hears M hiss into his ear, “Now, pet. For me.”

And Sebastian comes undone.

***

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***

Sebastian stares at himself in Jim’s bathroom mirror.

It has been ten years, eight months, and four days since the first time he saw himself in this mirror.

He tilts his head up, allowing the light to play on his scars so he can see them better. One side of him is classically handsome; high cheekbone, narrow jaw, generous lips under an aquiline nose. The other side looks like a wax doll left on the fire too long. His skin twists in thick strings down his face, melted and healed unclean. His right eye is blue. On the left side his iris and pupil are a pale blind shade of off-grey, and Sebastian himself is just a hair off completely blind. He has been since he was seventeen: long before he learned to compensate for it. And that, that was a process of years: memorizing a million tricks of air pressure and sound and light, under Jim’s impatient tutorage.

James Moriarty. M. Under the collar of Sebastian’s shirt, other scars whisper to him; the long scars of a training that will never be finished.

 _You’re afraid of this, aren’t you?_ Jim asks. He holds a cup full of hot coals over Sebastian’s face. Sebastian, restrained, writhes. Pure, abject terror sings in his veins. He will do anything, say anything, _he will do **anything** – _ if only Jim will promise not to burn him – if only he won’t upend the cup and make Sebastian scream – make Sebastian _burn –_ please, Jim, no – _You can’t be afraid, Sebastian. You have to forget that. You can’t be afraid of anything._

Three years, two months, and a handful of days since the last time Jim burned him. Sebastian doesn’t remember exactly _when,_ not the way he remembers when Jim and he first had sex. That last brand was a routine thing, at the kitchen table, and Sebastian had been unrestrained. He hadn’t even twitched when Jim pressed the hot metal into the back of his hand, smelling his flesh sear and cook like a cut of lean pork.

Jim pouted. _Can’t get **anything** out of you anymore, _he accused.

Sebastian smiled – wide and wolfish, the grin that made his scars twist and his face scare little children. _Just the way you made me, boss._ Jim loved that.

Ten years, eight months, and four days, and it’s finally time.

“Are you ready?” Jim says, from the doorway. Sebastian turns to see him waiting, dark suit neatly pressed under Jim’s slicked-back hair. He has to be nearing forty-five now – Sebastian’s never asked how old he was, when they met – but he looks exactly the same. Age is just another thing that can never manage to touch Jim Moriarty. Behind Jim the bed they slept in last night is rumpled, the sheets still mussed. Jim was on his back, last night, spread out beneath Sebastian and begging as Sebastian took him apart.

Sebastian smiles, feeling it pull on his scars. “Been ready for ten years,” he replies.

“Always wanted to kill a Peer,” Jim replies, airily, “So: Will this make you the new Baron Moran? I’ve always wanted to _fuck_ a Peer, too – “

He looks damn good, gloating. Sebastian laughs. He steps forward, looming over Jim, and leans down to kiss him; relishing the taste of Jim’s mouth. “Let’s find out,” he says.

And against his lips, Jim smiles.


End file.
